Investors greeted the news by sending Tesla shares up more than 4% in morning Friday trading.

Elon Musk remains as chief executive although he agreed with the SEC in October he would step down as chairman.

Larry Ellison is the co-founder and chairman of enterprise cloud software firm Oracle – currently the third largest software maker in the world after Microsoft and Google owner Alphabet.

He already owns three million shares of Tesla stock and is a close friend of Mr Musk.

Iron Man cameo

Actor Robert Downey Jr modelled the character of Tony Stark on Mr Musk for the film Iron Man in 2008, and in 2010, Mr Musk and Mr Ellison famously made cameo appearances in Iron Man 2 as fellow tech billionaires.

Image copyrightParamount Pictures

Image caption
Robert Downey Jr as Iron Man

Kathleen Wilson-Thompson is the global head of human resources at international pharmacy chain Walgreens Boots Alliance, and was previously an executive at Kellogg.